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Joe Dever

Author of a fantasy series whose fanbase grew when he created role-play video games that expanded Lone Wolf’s kingdom

January 13 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Dever had written eight books by 1986, and published the 29th instalment in 2016

Joe Dever created a sanctuary from the misery of adolescence for many of the 12 million who read his Lone Wolf fantasies — the first to adapt the Dungeons and Dragons choose-your-own-adventure format into book form.

A generation of teenage book-haters would sully their hands in the print of the British writer, losing themselves in his kingdom of Magnamund and taking on the alter ego of Lone Wolf, the only survivor of an order of warrior monks. Lone Wolf pits himself against the dark lords of Helgedad, who had massacred his kinsmen, the Kai Lords.

Dever wrote from midnight until dawn, surrounded by figurines that stood ready to act out the fantasies he was scribbling down. Over the course of 12 years, from 1984, Dever’s…

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